Mountain of a matchup
With SSL title at stake, Taft searching for first win at Tehachapi since 1992
| Thursday, Oct 29 2009 11:07 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Oct 29 2009 11:09 PM
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Henry A. Barrios / The Californian Taft High's from left, #3 Hunter Lijeroos, #18 Kevin Rivera, and #4 Eric Foch celebrate after Rivera's 1st half touch down run in their game with Wasco High Friday night.
Michael Fagans / The Californian Garces defender Jalen Sykes tries to evade the stiff-arm of Tehachapi's Max Clark during the first half of their game at Garces on a warm Friday night in Bakersfield.
Cruise up Taft Highway for about 25 miles, then jut up the 99 Freeway until you hit the 58. Get through Bakersfield, and you can finally begin your mountain ascent.
It takes about an hour and half to drive from Taft Union High School to Tehachapi High School. And though many hopeful Wildcats football players have taken that bus ride to a key South Sequoia League game, not many have enjoyed the return trip.
Taft is 2-8 all-time at Tehachapi, and has lost the last seven -- a stretch that dates back to 1992, before most of the current Wildcats were born.
The teams' next meeting comes tonight, and it's another SSL doozy. Both Taft and Tehachapi are 6-1 and 2-0 in the SSL. Both have beaten teams from divisions above theirs, Garces for the Warriors and Porterville for the Wildcats. Both know that a win tonight is a huge step toward a league title and a high seed in the Central Section playoffs.
"It'll be a big one," Tehachapi coach Steve Denman said.
"It really is," Taft coach Steve Sprague concurred. "This was the one you would have predicted (would decide the league) in August. Wasco has gotten in there and created an opportunity, but this one is year in and year out."
So what will separate the teams? If recent history is a consideration, it might be that home-field edge. Tehachapi has blown out Taft on the mountain -- 61-0 and 55-0 in 1996 and '98 -- and it has broken Taft's hearts on the mountain -- 23-18 in 2003 and 30-29 two years later.
And while the trend has mostly been reversed when the teams meet in Taft, that won't help the Wildcats this year.
"Everybody has a little home-field advantage," said Sprague, whose team won 42-0 at Wasco last week in the first SSL meeting of the league's three winning teams. "But up there, you talk about brisk weather, the altitude. It's just a tougher place to play than usual. Great crowd. We hope we don't give in to any chill factor or breeze. Sometimes it just seems like that happens."
Down in Bakersfield, other games tonight include a Division II showdown when West visits Garces, and Ridgeview at Centennial, which hopes to get injured quarterback Cody Kessler back soon after suffering a 16-14 loss to West last week. Stockdale and Frontier are home against North and South, respectively, as they try to remain unbeaten in the Southwest Yosemite League ahead of next weekend's showdown at Stockdale.
It's a good bet fans at any of those games will be warmer than those who make that drive up 58. The forecast in Tehachapi tonight calls for clear skies but temperatures in the low 40s with a slight breeze.
"This time of year, our kids have a little bit of an advantage with weather," Denman said. "Our kids are acclimated to it."
Not to mention that the home team usually is pretty darn good, this year being no exception. Tehachapi lost to 7-0 Frontier in Week 2 but has rattled off four wins since. Jesse Olofson (1,120 yards, 17 touchdowns), Max Clark and Phil Rhodes have ably filled in for departed Adam Mullen and Josh Strauss, who helped the team beat Taft the past two years and win the Division III section championships in both years. Taft will need to find a way to stop that Wing T attack to win.
"We're running it (in practice) with slower people than Tehachapi, and that bit us in the butt last year," Sprague said. "We had guys on the scout team, but they handed it to Strauss or Mullen and he went untouched probably 60 yards. Now they're running it with the next group down, but they're all good kids."
For its part, Taft has the county's leading rusher, Cody Shirreffs, who racked up 279 yards against Wasco last week and now has 1,335 yards and 15 touchdowns on the year.
"He's a hard runner," Denman said. "He really runs downhill, comes at you. He's one of the most physical runners we face."
Will that be enough for Taft to break its mountain hex?
"In the past, it was an 'Oh, no, we're going up on the mountain' thing," Sprague said. "This time we're embracing the idea a little more. We want to go up there. If we want to be a championship team, then that's the hand we were dealt and we'll go up there and do it."
